2018 Chrism Mass Homily

In the Gospel for the Chrism Mass, our Lord unrolls the scroll of the Prophet Isaiah and proclaims the Jubilee commission:
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor, to proclaim liberty to captives, to announce a year of favor from the Lord. In applying this prophetic passage to himself, our Lord announces that this Scripture is fulfilled in their hearing. Indeed, this fulfillment is why we have gathered this evening, for the saving Mysteries of Christ’s life have passed into the sacramental life of the Church. Every time the Church gathers in sacramental worship, the work of our salvation is fulfilled and accomplished.

The Lord has anointed me. The rich symbolism of anointing informs our celebration. The Church in her sacramental liturgy has adopted the Old Testament use of oil for the consecration of kings, priests, and prophets precisely because these prefigured Christ, the Anointed One of God. But the sacramental liturgy impels us even deeper into the Mystery, for the great work of the Spirit conforming us to Christ is not only symbolized by holy anointing, it is effected by it.

Tonight, we will do something different than what we have done at our first two Chrism Masses. In the past, we have exercised the option of blessing the Oil of Catechumens, the Oil of the Sick, and consecrating the Sacred Chrism as they are presented at the Offertory. Tonight, we will return to the much more ancient, Roman practice of blessing the Oil of the Sick during the great prayer of the Roman Canon itself. This pattern dates from at least the 7
th century, and what an insight it reveals. At the very heart of the Church’s liturgical prayer, the sacramental representation of the Paschal Mystery, the sick are brought in so that healing anointing may flow from the Risen One through the body of the Church to the members in need of that blessing.

We would do well, then, at this year’s Chrism Mass, to reflect more deeply on the great Sacrament of the Sick and the anointing which flows from the oil blessed tonight. In a very real sense, the sacramental anointing of the sick realizes the words of the Lord Jesus, that the anointing by the Spirit promised by the Prophet Isaiah are indeed fulfilled in our midst. In the Anointing of the Sick, the Holy Spirit conforms the sick person to Christ, particularly in his Passion and Cross, so that the sick person shares intimately in the fruits of his sacrifice, his dying and rising to new life.

The sick are anointed for strength! The particular gift of the Holy Spirit in this sacrament imparts strength, peace, courage, and protection, particularly against the temptation to despair! The Evil One never ceases his assault on the Church, but we shall not allow him power over our weakest members. We bring them to the center of our prayer, to the center of our loving charity and fraternal concern, and tonight to the very center of our Eucharistic sacrifice. In this privileged place, those who are anointed with this holy oil are strengthened by the prayer of our whole presbyterate and by their brothers and sisters throughout the Church.

The sick are anointed for deliverance! The whole of the Christian life is a Passover from death to new life, from sin to grace, from bondage to the true freedom of the sons of God. When our priests administer the Sacrament to the sick, they pray each time that the Lord who frees that person from sin save her and raise her up. The formula of anointing is a clear allusion to Christ, raised up on the cross and,
because of what he suffered in love for his Father and for us, he harrows hell and becomes the source of salvation for all who turn to him. The prefiguration of the bronze serpent raised up by Moses in the desert for the bodily healing of the Israelites finds in Christ its reality. True healing, healing not only of body but of soul, is possible in and through Christ. Sin and death have no claim on the one so transformed by divine grace.

The sick are anointed for communion. The healing effected by sacramental anointing is not just something that “happens.” Its power is found in the Cross and Resurrection of the Lord, and his definitive victory over the grave. The
Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches: “By the grace of this sacrament the sick person receives the strength and the gift of uniting himself more closely to Christ's Passion: in a certain way he is consecrated to bear fruit by configuration to the Savior's redemptive Passion. Suffering, a consequence of original sin, acquires a new meaning; it becomes a participation in the saving work of Jesus” (1521). How the powers of darkness have been overturned! The very suffering of the Lord’s Passion and Cross meant to annihilate his humanity and debase him in total isolation, by God’s outstretched arm, become the very means for the exaltation of humanity to the embrace of the Blessed Trinity and the inauguration of a New Covenant in the Precious Blood of Christ. Suffering is no longer an end in itself. It need no longer cut us off from communion with God and with one another. Anointed suffering is a participation in the saving work of Jesus! This is the good news that must be brought into every hospital, convalescent home, and to every sick person. Through the grace given to the Church, the sick are consecrated to bear fruit. Let us be clear: we don’t just care for the sick. We need them, so that the saving Passion of Christ be present and effective here and now.

In the anointing of the sick, just like the anointing with Sacred Chrism in Baptism and Confirmation, Christ Jesus binds us to himself and to one another with bonds that cannot be broken. For in the language of the Book of Revelation proclaimed today, it is he
who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his Blood, who has made us into a kingdom of priests for God our Father.

Truly, brothers and sisters, the great work of God is set before us today. We are anointed by the Holy Spirit and conformed ever more to Christ, and therein is our sanctification, our redemption, and our lasting hope. In every Mass throughout our great mission diocese, at every Baptism we celebrate, in the joy of our ordinations to the priesthood, and in the quiet prayer by the bedside of one very ill, the Church speaks none other than the words of her Lord:
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor, to proclaim liberty to captives, to announce a year of favor from the Lord.

And so today, as in every sacramental celebration, this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.